Ever wondered why your online shoppers are ditching their carts at checkout? If you answered yes, you might be in the middle of a checkout conversion problem.

In other words, visitors come to your website to make a purchase, but leave before completing their purchase. This phenomenon is all too common in e-commerce, with abandoned cart rates having skyrocketed to 70% in 2023.

Fortunately, there are several effective tactics businesses can employ to tackle this problem head-on and reclaim your potential customers. In this blog, we'll delve into the top ways you can boost checkout conversion rates and up your revenue.

But first, why are people dropping out?  

There are many reasons why people visit your online store, make their way through a purchase process and then at the last minute totally change their minds. Here's a list of the typical reasons why you’re not getting those wins. 

• Complicated checkout process: A lengthy or convoluted checkout process with too many steps or form fields can discourage customers from completing their purchase.

• Account creation walls: Requiring users to register or create an account before checkout can be a barrier, especially for first-time visitors.

• Lack of preferred payment option: If your store doesn't offer the payment method preferred by a customer, they may abandon their cart rather than compromise on payment security or convenience.

• Lack of trust in website security: Concerns about the security of personal and financial information can cause customers to abandon their carts if they don't trust the website's security measures.

• Unable to save the items for later: Some customers might wish to save items for future purchase or comparison, leading them to abandon their carts temporarily.

• Website errors: Technical glitches or slow loading times can frustrate visitors and lead them to abandon their carts.

Top ways to improve your checkout conversions rate 

1. Simplify the checkout process

People appreciate a clear and intuitive buying process. However, many businesses fail to deliver on this. To increase conversion rates, aim to make the journey to checkout as simple as possible without unnecessary steps, forms, or pop-ups. To create a simplest checkout process: be mindful of general design and layout, and  keep the journey as quick (and painless) as possible. 

2. Offer guest checkout

As mentioned above, there should be minimal steps before checkout. A great technique to achieve this is by offering Guest Checkout options. This allows potential shoppers to bypass account creation and purchase items directly, thereby potentially preventing a 35% drop in transactions. Shoppers provide their information for their order, such as their name, shipping address, and payment details, without wasting their precious time creating an account on your website.

3. Optimize for mobile

Most folks these days shop on their mobile phones - 76% of adults (US), to be exact. If you're running an ecommerce store, you'd best make sure that you adjust mobile navigation so that your online store is fully optimized for the mobile experience. Key actions you can take include ensuring a highly responsive design, providing an optimal mobile view, and integrating payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal, allowing users to complete their purchases with a single touch or click.

4. Display clear shipping fees

If you have global customers shopping from your online store, they probably want to see shipping costs before they click the pay button. Shipping costs can significantly affect prices, and purchasing an item without shipping costs can appear quite different at checkout. To avoid misleading customers, it's best to display clear shipping costs and available payment methods clearly on the checkout page. Doing this helps shoppers make better-informed decisions, ensures transparent pricing, and even boosts trust.

5. Communicate trust

Customers want to feel safe and secure when making purchases online. This includes having a reputable-looking website and displaying various badges for payment security, data protection, and purchase policies. Creating a trustworthy relationship with your customers boosts conversion rates. In fact, statistics show that 35% of potential buyers abandon a site without a security badge. These trust signals reassure customers that their information is safe and their purchase is protected.

6. Offer multiple payment options

Different customers have various preferences when it comes to payment methods. The Baymard Institute found that 6% of cart abandonments occur due to a lack of preferred payment methods. With more options, paying becomes more convenient, increasing the likelihood of completing a purchase. By offering multiple payment options, you make it easier for customers to pay in a way that suits their preferences and needs.

7. Use abandoned cart emails

Implementing an abandoned cart marketing strategy is crucial. A great way to do this is by  re-engaging customers through "abandoned cart emails." Setting up emails gently reminds customers about their abandoned carts, highlights the items left behind, and utilizes personalized tactics tailored to reflect their buyer interests. Additionally, offering exclusive discounts or special offers can entice customers to return and seal the deal.

8. Reduce card decline rates

Having your customer click on the "pay" button can still turn out to be a lost conversion. Countless good deals are lost due to card declines - in fact, an average of 10% of checkout purchases get thrown out right at this very last conversion stage. This problem often goes unnoticed by merchants, but it can lead to millions of dollars lost for your business, not to mention the wasted marketing costs. With Bounce, your ecommerce business can identify false card declines and recover over 30% of them in real time, ensuring you capture valuable revenue opportunities and minimize losses effectively.

Optimize checkout for success

Whether it’s confusing web design, or false card declines, improving your checkout process is vital for ecommerce success. With many factors leading to cart abandonment, streamlining the online checkout is crucial for retaining customers, building loyalty, and boosting revenue. By prioritizing checkout optimization, businesses can seamlessly guide customers through the buying journey and resolve common pain points that maximize value from your shoppers.

ABBA's "Take a Chance on Me" might not have been about the internet and free trials, but the sentiment fits perfectly: In today’s subscription economy, offering something for free to earn loyalty and commitment is spot-on. In fiercely competitive subscription markets and ecosystems, turning free trial users into paying customers is the difference between a win and a loss.

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7 Winning strategies for making your free-trial users into paying customers

1. Streamline the user journey :To avoid user abandonment, it’s crucial to remove friction from your onboarding process. Tools such as FullStory and Hotjar offer detailed analytics and session recordings to help you pinpoint where users encounter difficulties. 

2. Personalize the experience: Customizing the onboarding process to meet specific user needs can significantly boost conversion rates. For example, Spotify personalizes its user experience by leveraging user data to tailor the onboarding process. When users sign up for a free trial, Spotify analyzes their listening habits and preferences to suggest playlists and songs they are likely to enjoy. This approach makes the trial experience more engaging and increases the likelihood of conversion paid subscription.

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3. Accommodate various learning styles:  Provide varied onboarding methods - such as guided tours, checklists, and live workshops - to accommodate different learning styles. Interactive tutorials and personalized guidance can make the onboarding process more engaging and informative.Canva and Notion provide personalized onboarding tutorials during their free trials. 

4. Utilize the Zeigarnik Effect:To boost free trial conversions, leverage the Zeigarnik effect. This psychological principle suggests that people have a strong desire to complete tasks they've started. By using 2-step opt-in forms, you can effectively harness this effect. For instance, OptinMonster's prompts users to click a link to open a signup form, increasing the likelihood they’ll complete the action by entering their email. Hubstaff successfully applied this technique, increasing free trial signups by 21% by engaging abandoning visitors with a well-timed popup.

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5. Implement behavior-based emails: Dispatch activity-triggered emails to steer users through essential actions. Emphasizing unused features and upgrade benefits keeps users engaged and promotes conversions.

6. Contextualize Upgrade Prompts :Clearly demonstrate how your product addresses specific user problems, making the upgrade decision more compelling. For example, emphasize how a project management tool streamlines workflows and saves time. This contextualization helps users see the tangible benefits of upgrading to a paid plan. For instance, Asana illustrates how their tool can enhance team productivity and project management efficiency.

7.Request payment information upfront: While requesting payment information upfront may reduce the number of free trials, it filters out non-serious users and increases conversion rates. In the subscription ecosystem, it’s often better to have fewer subscribers who are genuinely interested in your product or service. This strategy is commonly used in SaaS models where the conversion rates for opt-out trials, which require payment information upfront, can be as high as 60%, compared to lower rates for opt-in trials.

The credit card decline dilemma

Even with effective strategies, credit card declines remain a significant hurdle, causing involuntary churn and eroding revenue. The actual moment of conversion, often referred to as the "blind zone," is critical. When this zone is not addressed, potential revenue is lost. Common causes include expired cards, fraud holds, insufficient funds and hard declines. Monitoring and addressing these issues can enhance revenue and customer satisfaction. These issues impact not only revenue but also customer experience and operational efficiency.

Stop leaving money at the table

In today's subscription economy, smooth onboarding is key. But what if perfectly valid subscribers are getting flagged at checkout, leading to lost revenue and frustrated customers?

Bounce solves this problem with the power of AI. Our machine learning technology analyzes payment data to identify valid transactions wrongly declined. This means:

• An Access to Bounce’s New Tailored Product Swift: Swift is a machine learning solution focused on converting more customers after a free trial. It helps identify users with high intent and ability to pay without charging their cards, ensuring a seamless onboarding experience. Swift operates on two levels: conversion level, predicting chances of becoming paying customers, and action level, suggesting the best actions to turn low-chance users into paying customers. This enhances user experience, accuracy in user acquisition, revenue generation, and understanding of customer lifetime value (LTV).
• More Subscribers, More Revenue: We recover up to 20% of lost free trial conversions, translating to a 5% boost in top-line revenue.
• Reduced Customer Churn: Bounce ensures a seamless checkout experience, reducing frustration and leading to a 15% decrease in churn. Happy customers stick around longer, boosting your lifetime value (LTV).
• Frictionless Signups: Our AI ensures a smooth payment flow, preventing unnecessary friction and keeping customers happy.

• Recover Lost Revenue: We identify and approve valid subscribers flagged at checkout, recovering up to 10% of failed signups.
• Boost Conversion Rates: Bounce helps convert more free trials into paying customers, leading to a 4% increase in top-line revenue.
• Improve Customer Satisfaction: A smooth checkout experience keeps customers happy and reduces churn.

You don't have to take our word for it; we can show you. Schedule a meeting with our experts and see how we can improve your conversion performance.

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We've all been there - gleefully clicking "Buy Now" on what seems like the best deal, whether it's booking that long-awaited flight, upgrading to the latest high-end smartphone, or ordering a customized New York Times front page puzzle, and suddenly: your card has been declined.This all-too-common issue, known as a card decline, occurs when a credit or debit card transaction is rejected during checkout. While it may seem like a minor inconvenience to the shopper, for businesses, card declines can signal significant trouble.

Research shows that over 10% of checkouts fail due to payment declines, significantly impacting e-commerce and subscription services, resulting in millions of dollars lost annually. Furthermore, the operational costs associated with managing declined transactions and providing customer support add another layer of expense. Businesses also grapple with higher customer acquisition costs (CAC) as they endeavor to re-engage lost customers, making card declines a pressing issue that requires attention.

For large online retailers, a single percentage point increase in decline rates can translate to tens of millions of dollars in lost sales annually. In 2023, U.S. eCommerce firms are projected to lose $157 billion due to false declines alone. Major players in the e-commerce space report that decline-related friction can significantly reduce customer lifetime value (CLV), with companies like Postmates experiencing a 1.72% uplift from implementing card account updater services, leading to $60 million in recovered revenue.

Resulting in substantial lost sales

When customers encounter declined transactions during online purchases, the experience often leads to significant frustration and impacts their future behavior and perception of the business. According to a study by the Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned due to various issues, including credit card declines. Approximately 26% of shoppers who experience a payment issue, such as a card decline, end up purchasing the same product from a competitor.  Additionally, credit card debt surged to over $1 trillion in Q2 2023, reflecting increased transaction volumes but also a higher risk of declines and delinquencies. This issue not only leads to immediate revenue loss but also tarnishes brand perception, as frequent declines can make customers question a business’s reliability, potentially spreading negative reviews and eroding trust. Furthermore, the 2023 McKinsey Global Payments Report highlights that such experiences significantly decrease customer loyalty, with dissatisfied customers more likely to seek alternatives, thereby increasing churn rates and reducing customer lifetime value.

Strategies to mitigate card declines

Effectively managing card declines is crucial for maintaining revenue and customer satisfaction. Here are advanced strategies to reduce declines and improve transaction success rates:

• Enhanced Fraud Prevention and Security Layers: Implement robust fraud prevention tools and add multiple security layers, such as 3D Secure (3DS2), which uses security questions or biometric authentication. This reduces fraudulent transactions and minimizes false declines, improving authorization rates by up to 10%.

• Accepting Digital Wallets: Digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay use tokenization and two-factor authentication, reducing fraud risk and improving authorization rates. They expedite the checkout process, enhancing customer satisfaction.

• Accurate Industry Indicators and Customer Information Ensure all transaction data matches business activities and customer details. Using accurate Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) and complete billing information, including ZIP codes and CVCs, strengthens authentication and reduces declines due to mismatched information.

How to tackle credit card declines with Bounce’s solution

At Bounce, we are committed to excellence with our advanced AI that recovers failed payments in real-time, requires minimal resources, and operates on a commission basis, ensuring businesses only pay for successful recoveries. Our solution includes:

• AI-Based Payment Recovery: Our system analyzes transaction data in real-time to recover failed payments, boasting a recovery rate of over 30% for declined transactions.
• Real-Time Transaction Analysis: Continuous monitoring of transaction patterns allows us to quickly identify and address issues that might lead to declines.
• Seamless Integration: Our technology integrates smoothly with existing payment systems, requiring no additional budget or extra work after implementation.

And contributes to these KPIs:

• Increases top line by 5%: By recovering a substantial portion of failed transactions, we help businesses boost their overall revenue.
• Improves Authentication Rates by 7%: Enhanced fraud detection and verification processes improve the success rate of legitimate transactions.
• Reduces Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Efficiently managing declines helps retain customers and reduces the need for costly reacquisition efforts.

Incorporating innovative tools like ours transforms this challenge into an opportunity. With industry-leading AI-driven payment recovery and real-time transaction analysis, we don’t just mitigate the impact of card declines; we revolutionize the entire checkout experience. By integrating such sophisticated technology, businesses can optimize revenue streams and enhance customer experience and retention, knowing they are less likely to be declined for no good reason, ultimately positioning themselves as leaders in the marketplace.